What is Right and What is Easy
by Le Comte de Saint-Nicholas
Summary: After the battle of Hogwarts, Draco (Malfoy that he is) tries to flee the castle. Unfortunately for him, he finds Hermione in his way, wand drawn and expression thunderous. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't even get to hex the coward before the resultant conversation changes both their views of the other.


**This is a small, strange thing that I wrote because I was bored. I don't know where it came from, but small, strange things do happen.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I admit**

**I make no money from this fanfiction.**

**And yet I am in love with Rowling's wit**

**And that's what matters, when all's said and done.**

**As Shakespeare said; 'Rage, rage, against the ending of Harry Potter.'**

What is Right and What is Easy

Draco Malfoy hurried through the ruins of Hogwarts. His wand was drawn and he looked uneasily around him. Behind him, light and music spilled from Great Hall, where everyone was celebrating the downfall of the Dark Lord. He heard laughter, the long, loud laughter that springs from deep relief and says; 'I'm still alive! All of that, and I'm still alive!'

Draco was not laughing. He had picked the wrong side, and all his family's influence wouldn't do him much good now, and so he needed to enact an age-old Malfoy tradition.

He was hightailing it out of here before his enemies stopped celebrating long enough to realise he had gone.

He breathed a small sigh of relief at reaching the bridge unseen. He would apparate to Gringotts as soon as he was past the apparition wards, remove as much of his gold as he could, stop by Malfoy Manor for some spare clothing and a warm cloak…

And, he realised, begin living as a fugitive. He wondered briefly if this was how Potter felt hiding from the ministry. He wondered how he had managed it for so long. If he hadn't been so caught up in his thoughts, mind whirling with plans and schemes and ideas, he might have noticed that the bridge wasn't deserted. But he didn't, until it was far too late.

Hermione Granger had gone out onto the bridge to get some air. There was still a lot of smoke staining the air inside the castle buildings, a reminder of the all-to-recently extinguished fires, and all the noise was making her head pound. She understood why people wanted to celebrate. But she herself was tired and battered and still to some degree in shock, and had seldom been in a less celebratory mood.

Voldemort was gone. Hooray, she thought dully. Now we can get back to normal life. And she realised with a start that she didn't know what normal life _was_. Her life had until very recently been focused on hiding. Keep out of sight. Stay on your guard. And try to find a way of striking back at Voldemort. That had been it. She leaned over the edge of the bridge, taking deep breaths of the crisp, clean Scottish air and feeling a light breeze brush her forehead. Then she saw movement to her left, and before she had finished the thought she was standing in the centre of the bridge, wand out and levelled at her attacker's throat. At, she realised, the throat of Draco Malfoy. She snarled, feeling a slow burning anger rise through her body. Draco had his wand half raised, but she gestured sharply with hers and he lowered it again.

'Granger…' said the boy uncertainly, and Hermione realised he hadn't been trying to attack her. He had been trying to run away.

'Proper Malfoy, aren't you?' she sneered angrily. 'Trying to save your own skin once again.'

'Says the person who's been hiding in a tent for the past year' retaliated Malfoy, and then fell silent as the wand was raised to point between his eyes.

'Don't. Talk. To. Me.' Said Hermione slowly. She was shaking with rage. All the people in the world to run into, and she got Draco Malfoy. Draco the liar. Draco the turncoat.

'I don't think you quite understand,_ Draco_' she said, spitting out his name vehemently. 'I _hate_ you. More than I can say. More than anyone in the world. More even than Bellatrix Lestrange.' She jerked up her sleeve to show Malfoy the mark that witch had left on her, the untidy red scrawl down her arm that spelt a word born of an ignorant and hateful society. She saw his eyes widen slightly.

'A fanatic I can understand, even respect' she hissed. 'Someone who believes so strongly in their cause, in its fundamental righteousness, you can respect someone like that. Even if you hate them. But a coward… nobody loves a coward. Nobody trusts a coward, and nobody trusts a traitor, which makes you rather low down on everyone's list, and rather high up on my list of people I never want to see again in my life.'

She made a disgusted sound and turned away from Malfoy, looking back over the bridge.

'Do you want to know why?' blurted Draco suddenly. 'Do you want to know why I did it all?'

She turned back, looking at him unreadably. 'Go on then' she said.

'It was my family.' said Draco. He couldn't think why he was saying all of this, let alone to Granger, but once he'd started, he didn't think he could stop. It all came rushing out, breaking the dams he had built around it in a wave of truth. For once in his life, pure simple truth. He saw Hermione's sceptical look and hurried on.

'The mistake most people make is that they don't realise that, despite what everyone thinks, despite the odds, despite the impression, _I love my family_. I wanted them to be proud of me. I always did that extra bit in a vain attempt just to get my cold, hard father to smile at me and say 'well done'. And I know I'm a coward. And I hate myself for it. I just wanted to help my family. To protect them, keep them together.'

'I love my parents too' said Hermione fiercely. 'Love them so much, miss them so much that it hurts.' Her voice became harsh. 'And I modified their memories and sent them to the other side of the world to protect them from Voldemort and now they don't even know my name.'

Draco shrugged. 'You're the Gryffindor. I'm the Slytherin. I always found acquiescence easier than standing up.' He moved past Hermione, staring across the black lake. After a moment he said quietly 'They always loved you, though.'

The witch looked at him curiously, and he continued earnestly; 'You take it for granted - that pride, that approval, the fact that there was never a minute when they weren't glad you were their daughter, a minute where you looked into your father's eyes and saw just calm, uncaring indifference. You didn't notice that love when it was there, which makes it so much easier to give up. Imagine growing up without that. Imagine growing up where no-one loved you.'

He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. 'Do you remember third year, when I got that hippogriff executed?'

She glared at him. 'Yes' she said dangerously.

'That wasn't about Potter, or you, or even Hagrid. That was about my father. I wanted to shock him. I wanted to him to care. I wanted to make him _notice_ me, in any way I could. And so I combined my safety with Malfoy honour and got my arm lacerated.'

He looked over at Hermione, and spoke sadly. 'It didn't work. The hippogriff got executed, of course, but that wasn't about me. In the mix of Malfoy dignity and my own health that I used, I saw his priorities.' He let out a short, sharp laugh. 'About nine-tenths Malfoy honour and one-tenth my wellbeing. He barely glanced at me.'

Hermione looked stunned. 'But your mother…' she began.

'My mother tries.' cut in Malfoy. 'But motherhood isn't easy or natural for her. She doesn't know where to start. She follows my father around like a sheep, and he follows the Dark Lord.' He laughed ironically again. 'Followed. That's all over now. We've lost everything.'

Hermione rounded on him angrily. 'You think _you've_ lost everything in this war? My mum…My dad…'

She broke down completely, crying into her arms as she leaned on the side of the bridge. Draco froze for a moment, and then awkwardly patted her on the shoulder.

'But we _won_.' She sobbed quietly, more to herself than to Malfoy. 'It wasn't supposed to be like this…It was supposed to be happy…'

'You know, I used to think I was so much better than you' he said softly. 'I was sure of it in the same way I was sure the Earth was round. It was a fundamental part in the way I was brought up; 'you are the best'. But not because of me, or who _I_ was. Because I was a Malfoy. I was pureblood and you were muggle-born. I was male, and you were female. I was a Malfoy, and you were nobody. I convinced myself of that for so long.'

Hermione had composed herself a little during this speech, and now glanced up at him, tear tracks running down her face. 'And do you still believe that?'

He laughed bitterly. 'Look where we ended up. Look who won.'

She looked at him, a strange expression on her face. 'Draco…'

'What?' he said abruptly.

'You've made a lot of bad decisions in your life, Draco. And most of them came from following your father.'

'What's your point?'

'Don't make another' she said with surprising intensity. 'You don't have to follow your family forever. You've done that for seventeen years and you know how much happiness it's brought you. Make your own choices. Stand up, for once in your life.'

'I'm a Slytherin' he said, deadpan. 'You should know by now that standing up is not in my nature.'

'Slytherin!' cried Hermione angrily. 'Gryffindor! Don't you know by now that that's worth absolutely nothing! Don't let your lifelong view of yourself and your actions be dictated by a magically-animated object's opinion of your eleven-year-old psychology, for heaven's sake!' She said this all very fast.

Draco stared at her in shock, resisting the temptation to edge away slightly. The last time he had seen her so worked up, she had punched him around the face. Hermione took a deep breath.

'People are rarely so simple, Draco.' She finished in a more moderate tone. She saw him begin to speak and said quickly; 'A coward isn't something that you are. It's something that you choose to be. So choose not to. Don't run. Stay and take the consequences for what you helped to do, rather than fleeing after your father into a life in hiding.'

He hesitated, and she spoke softly. 'Don't do what is easy because you're afraid. Do what is right. Whatever is right. And you know what that is.'

Draco bit his lip, struggling with his indecision. Staying would be against everything he had ever been taught about self-preservation. It would be bold, and it would be hideously stupid. He should be leaving- he should be half-way to Malfoy Manor by now, and here he was standing talking to Granger of all people! And yet he did not turn away and walk down the bridge.

The strange pair spoke quietly for a few minutes more. Then Hermione began to walk back into the castle. And with her walked the coward, Draco Malfoy. No wands were drawn, no words were said. Draco walked back into Hogwarts castle with his enemy, despite the retribution the wizarding world would enact upon him, despite the curses and jeers he knew would be sent his way in equal measure, despite the threat of Azkaban looming over him. Despite the consequences, or perhaps because of them.

Because he knew that it was what was right.


End file.
